Map Methodology

This evidence map includes 352 peer-reviewed publications reporting on clinical trials (randomized controlled trials, controlled clinical trials, and pre-post studies), and is current as of January 2024.

The underlying scoping review, which identified the articles included in the evidence map, used the following modified version of Jain's 2015 definition of biofield therapies to determine which interventions to include:

“Biofield therapies are noninvasive therapies in which a practitioner explicitly works with their own or another living system's (e.g., person, nonhuman, animal) biofield (interacting fields of energy and information that surround living systems) locally or remotely to facilitate a healing response.”

Article Inclusion Criteria:

1. Peer-reviewed studies published in English, including:
   • Scoping reviews
   • Systematic reviews
   • Integrative reviews
   • Meta-analyses
   • Interventional trials (e.g., randomized controlled trials, controlled clinical trials, before-and-after study)
   • Observational studies (e.g., prospective or retrospective longitudinal cohort studies, case-control studies, and cross-sectional studies)
   • Case studies and case series
2. Humans, animals, or cell models as study participants (i.e., receivers of the intervention) in which the biofield therapy was being delivered between practitioner(s) and receiver(s)
3. All clinical outcomes and types of control/comparators
4. Observational studies that involved surveys reporting on the prevalence of biofield therapy usage within a population
5. Studies involving multimodal interventions, where subjects were exposed to various modalities including biofield therapies

Article Exclusion Criteria:

1. Study designs that did not meet the inclusion criteria, such as:
   • Editorials
   • Commentaries
   • Book chapters
   • Conference proceedings/abstracts
   • Narrative reviews
   • Practice guidelines
2. Studies involving plants or inanimate objects as recipients
3. Studies in which practitioners incorporate tools such as acupuncture needles or tuning forks, or employ techniques involving manipulation of the musculoskeletal system, such as massage or cranial sacral therapy
4. Studies where the practitioner served as the recipient (working on their own system/self-healing)

To gain a deeper understanding of the methodology employed in this scoping review to identify the articles included in the evidence map, please see here.

Future iterations of this evidence map will incorporate all study designs and populations, and will be updated yearly.

To view all of the peer-reviewed publication citations identified by this scoping review for inclusion, please see here: Biofield Therapies Clinical Research Landscape: A Scoping Review and Interactive Evidence Map.